TfL has highlighted the company's approach to reporting serious criminal offences and to obtaining criminal record checks for drivers as factors in its decision.

The company came under scrutiny in Britain after it emerged that dozens of rape and sexual assault claims had been made against their drivers and when one of their drivers used his vehicle in a recent terror attack on Buckingham Palace.

It also questioned the process through which drivers obtain their medical certificates and the practice of "greyballing", when the company uses a fake version of its app to fool regulators in cities in which it is banned.